Before, During and After
by IronyRocks
Summary: Ford returns to Atlantis. Written for the Team Ficathon on LiveJournal. COMPLETE.


**Title**: Before, During and After  
**Author**: **ironyrocks**  
**Written for**: **sgateamathon06**, for **purplecube**, who wanted a farewell scene (i.e. Sheppard, McKay, and Weir return to Earth, Teyla to Athos, or Ronon to Sateda.) I decided to go with Ford.  
**Word Count**: 2,788  
**Catagory**: Gen, Aiden Ford, Character Study, team!fic.  
**Rating**: PG-13, for language  
**Summary**: Who are you supposed to be now?  
**A/N**: Beta'd by **trialia**.

* * *

You realize your life can be split with three divisions: Before, During and After.

Before? Before was Aiden Ford, All-American boy. The kid from Middle-of-Nowhere with the beaming grandparents in the background. The boy who lost his virginity to Cindy Andrews in the backseat of his Chevy after Junior Prom. Before was the guy who pounced on the chance to join the military as soon as they would take him – 'cause there sure as hell wasn't a chance he was ever college material. That was before.

During? During was Aiden Ford, druggie. The kid that was hopped up on the bodily fluids of Wraith and convinced it was the greatest thing since the football was invented. The boy that ruled as the one-eyed crazy King over an empire full of reckless freakin' idiots. That guy that led every single one of them to their deaths because he thought he knew what the hell he was talking about. Turns out, he didn't. He was just too high to realize it.

After? After is now: Aiden Ford . . . whoever the fuck you are.

You don't even think much of it, at first. You're too hopped up on drugs – not the fun kind – to pay much attention to what's going on around you beyond the perfunctory and automatic words you're supposed to say.

_Yes, Sir, I feel fine._

No, Ma'am, I think the effects of the enzyme have completely worn off.

Sure, Teyla, I'd like some company. Maybe some time later, though?

I was never going to **actually** kill you, McKay.

And . . . _Oh, hey._ (You really can't think of much more to say to Ronon beyond that).

For the most part, you know they see through your bullshit, but they don't call you on it. You have to pretend everything's okay – like you weren't completely batshit for two years running. All of it is a crystal clear memory that rolls around in that empty head of yours, though. Even if you're clean and sober now, for six whole weeks - the longest six weeks of your entire life - you can still almost taste the bitter tang of adrenaline in the back of your throat. It used to spike every time you took another hit of the enzyme, and the charge it gave you made it difficult for you to remember much else those first few weeks you were strapped down in the infirmary.

The cravings have lessened, but the memory is still sharp and choking.

You strap closed your backpack, tucking all your worldly possessions neatly into a standard issue military satchel, and toss it over your shoulders. You're being released from the infirmary, finally, and just in time too. Any more days spent here and you would have gone bat-shit for a whole new set of reasons. You're dressed in BDU's again, a former second skin that now feels like you're playing dress up, and smile over at your C.O. – _former_ C.O. – you aren't a Lieutenant in the United States military anymore. Not officially.

That was part of _before._

He still calls you Lieutenant, though. John Sheppard, you've always known, is a stubborn guy when he wants to be. Underneath that entire laid-back persona is the heart of a guy you had once been willing to follow to hell and back again. He showed you what a real soldier was supposed to be like, and you spent that first year in Atlantis trying to prove you had what it took to follow in his footsteps; that you could make him proud.

You think even _during_, you were trying to do that.

He walks you out of the infirmary and back towards your new digs. Someone took the old ones you had, the ones that were yours, and even if you know it's irrational, you feel a sting of resentment that they didn't hold them for you. Like they never really expected you to come back, no matter how much they claimed otherwise. And if they did, they didn't think too much about the details _afterwards._

You don't think anyone thought about those details. Everybody here had just been on the kick of getting back "wayward Ford," they'd deal with the rest later. But, like you said earlier, later is now. Everybody's just still trying to adjust to that.

Anyway, one of the newbies has your corner room up on the second floor of the east wing now, so you have to deal with one that's further away. There are more newbies here than you're comfortable with around this place (that's what you call anyone that wasn't here that first year of exile – "newbies" – even though, technically, they've been living in Atlantis longer than you ever have); like Major Lorne, Sheppard's new 2IC. He's the new guy, even if he is your superior officer. Even if he is as shiny and awesome as you get the feeling he is.

You don't say any of this out loud. You know you have no right to judge anyone. From the moment that Wraith first laid his hand on your chest, he sucked that privilege out of you and replaced it with the enzyme instead. You just have to live with that.

Sheppard makes small talk and jokes and, for the most part, acts as if nothing is wrong at all. It feels hollow though, like he's trying too hard. He says he understands – mentions something about turning into a bug that second year that makes him sympathetic – but you just blink and nod along and turn back into that "Yes, Sir" guy you swore you'd never be again. Except, this time, you're doing it for other reasons.

After he's gone, you settle into your new room, toss your stuff into the corner, and crash on your bed.

You lie awake the entire night.

* * *

Teyla visits you the next morning. She stops by with a cup of Athosian tea and a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. She doesn't trust you, you think. She has no reason to, but because it's Teyla – the first person here that saw you as Aiden instead of just Ford – it stings more than usual. Her trust isn't given freely. A person has to earn it. You've lost that.

She talks to you as you walk out the door and towards the Mess Hall for breakfast. She asks you the same question a dozen other people have: just as generic and just as routine as the situation deserves. You spend breakfast together, and while you hate the way her eyes are guarded around you, you're just thankful she hasn't dropkicked your ass for what you did to her a year ago in those caves. You smirk – something you never did _before_ – and shrug, and try to act like you aren't as uncomfortable with this as she is.

Ronon drops by, settling a full tray-load of food next to Teyla. She gives him a look, a pointed one, which he either ignores or just doesn't get. It takes a minute of the strained silence that settles in before you realize you have other places to be. You get up and make your excuses and Teyla — God love her — tries to stop you.

You walk away anyway, with the distinct impression that Ronon won this round. Everything feels like a competition with him. Guess what? You're losing by a mile.

* * *

Sometime later, you bump into McKay in the hallway.

He's the only one who's been actively avoiding you this entire time, but at least you think he's upfront about his hesitation to accept you back into the fold. He fumbles for something to say, rapid strings of words chain-linked together into some random sentence that never ends. You think there's concern somewhere in there – recognize it from the few instances you've actually seen McKay concerned about something other than himself and impending doom – but it's mostly coated over by nervousness.

He awkwardly pats you on the shoulder, some sort of gesture of comfort in another lifetime perhaps, and you give him points for trying. Trying for McKay, you realize, is something he doesn't do often.

You smile in return, forced yet automatic.

You leave without saying much at all. It's for the best anyway. McKay used up all the words.

* * *

By mid-afternoon, another swift shift in your mood hits, and you just want to tell everyone to fuck off.

Everywhere you turn, everywhere you go, there are people staring at you. Whispering at your entrance and retreat from any given room. _That's Ford,_ you can imagine them saying,_ the guy that went all Rambo on everyone after he got addicted to Wraith crack. You see his left eye? Guy's a freak._

You haul back up in your room, and pray no one tries to come and find you. Not because you want to be left alone. No. Because you're afraid of what you might do at the slightest provocation. The enzyme is long gone from your system, but it still affects you. You can feel it goading you: _You don't have to take this bullshit. You don't have to be here._

Doctor Weir shows up.

In the back of your head, you hate yourself for it, but the brief notion of using her as a hostage to break your way out of here flitters through your head. Only briefly, but it's there. That's the type of thought that the Ford from _before_ would have kicked your ass for. That's the type of thought that the Ford from _during_ would have encouraged.

The Ford of _after,_ the Ford of now? Just flops down on his bed and doesn't do a damn thing. Barely even moves while she talks. You have no idea what to do, so you do nothing at all.

She tells you that they're sending you back to Earth tomorrow.

You don't say a word in response, and she seems to take this as a negative thing. She tells you that she tried to hold off the brass back home as long as she could, but they're impatient now, and you're not cordoned off in the infirmary anymore. She apologizes, and shows sympathy, and the entire time, you feel nothing. Numb.

You should have expected this.

* * *

Hours later, the numbness has passed.

You pound away at the gym bag, wishing it were yourself. You're sweat-soaked and tired, and that pisses you off even more because you're used to enduring three times as much as this before exhaustion begins to seep into your bones. The enzyme had made you stronger, better, and now you're nothing but weak from two hours' worth of workout. You're pathetic.

Ronon walks into the gym.

It doesn't take much for you to provoke him into a sparring session. It doesn't take much for him to beat you down either, although for a time you give as good as you get. You taste the satisfaction of drawing blood, veins pumping with familiar adrenaline, before you're flat on your ass with Ronon hovering over you. He wins. Again.

As he's pulling back, he tells you that he knows what you're going through. He was a Runner for seven years, and he knows what it's like to readjust. He tells you that it gets better with time. You just gotta let your friends – your _family_, he says – help a little.

For some indefinable reason, this makes you snap.

You pounce on him when he turns his back to walk away, and the son of a bitch still sees it coming. This trade-off of punches and kicks isn't sparring. It's fighting. No holds barred, you use all your pent-up frustration and rage against him; like he's the enemy, like he's the reason you walk around like a stranger among your own friends, like he's why you can't look yourself in the mirror anymore. You convince yourself for a second that he's the problem, not you.

That second of unbridled anger manages to fuel you and gain you the upper hand. You win in a fight that no one – not even you - would think was possible, not without the enzyme anyway. You pull back just before kicking a guy when he's already on the ground, and the fury of everything turns sharply to nausea as you realize that this was Ford from _during._ This was enzyme Ford.

Son of a bitch will always be with you, you know, just like the Grandmamma's boy a layer underneath.

You push back, mutter something incoherent that should be an apology but isn't, and flee the gym just as Ronon rises. You brush past the civilian personnel in the hallway, see a few military guys stiffen as you walk by, and ignore everyone. You don't go back to your quarters. You don't want to feel like you're retreating to some safe haven when there isn't one. Never has been for you. You're all alone with three voices in your head.

You spend the rest of the night – your last night on Atlantis – trying to convince yourself that you're not certifiably insane.

* * *

Sheppard finds you sitting against the wall outside the southeast pier; on the exact same terrace that you had fallen from when that Wraith had first laid his claws into you. Three feet in front of you, beyond the railing, is a sudden drop of a couple of hundred feet into icy cold waters. You remember what the fall feels like.

He clears his throat to announce his presence, but you've know he was there for well over a minute now; just watching. He's probably trying to figure out the magic words to suddenly make everything better. You realize that actually expect him to come up with something profound. You've always looked to him for guidance _before,_ and even a little _during,_ so it makes sense you look to him _after._

He settles himself down next to you, jokes about the weather or something, and then awkward silence settles in. The only thing that breaks the hush is the sounds of the ocean as wave after wave breaks onto the structure of Atlantis in a repetitive crash.

You don't know what the hell to do, you confess out loud, without even meaning to. You don't know what to say or think, and you don't even know how to _pretend_ to act. You don't know how to do anything anymore. You say all of this out loud, to him, and wait a moment before you admit the thing that really pisses you off the most: you don't know who the hell you are anymore.

He licks his lips, looks away, and admits he knows only one thing: For whatever you need, your family will be there for you. Always . . . But some things you gotta figure out for yourself.

Everybody keeps telling you that.

* * *

The wormhole establishes, and you get a hug from Teyla and – this turns you slightly red-faced – Doctor Weir. They both whisper different words of the same comfort, and pull back before you can think of anything in response. McKay echoes the sentiment with saying something about you having a strong sense of duty or something, so there's no way you won't be back in Atlantis sometime soon. You raise an eyebrow in response, and feel oddly proud of a remark like that from McKay of all people.

Doctor Weir retreats back to the control room, and Ronon nods to you from the corner of the 'Gate room, standing at a distance as you continue to say goodbye to your former – his present - teammates. He's sporting a bruised eye, but you don't apologize for it. Later, you wonder if he might have let you win, but then you realize Ronon isn't the type to let anyone win anything, least of all in fighting.

You look from Teyla, to McKay, and settle on Sheppard. You salute him, back straight and posture perfect, and Sheppard salutes you back.

"We'll keep the light on for you," he says, "For when you get back."

You pause. You may be screwed up in the head to the point where you don't know which way is up. You may even have irresolvable problems in readjusting to everything that's supposed to be normal. But just before you turn and walk through the wormhole back to Earth, one thing does feel concrete. The only thing that feels concrete.

All three of the voices in your head are in sudden rare agreement: You're gonna come back sometime soon and find a way to prove to everyone – including yourself – that you belong here.

You belong in Atlantis.

* * *

fin


End file.
